There is no better hiding place for clues - or red herrings - than inside the pages of a book. With Martin Edwards as librarian and guide, delve into an irresistible stack of tales perfect for every book lover and armchair sleuth, featuring much-loved Golden Age detectives such as Nigel Strangeways, Philip Trent and Detective Chief Inspector Roderick Alleyn. But listeners should be warned that the most riveting tales often conceal the deadliest of secrets.

When two newlyweds move into their new home, only to discover that a corpse has been buried in their basement a few months prior, a case is begun to trace the identity of the victim. With all avenues of investigation approaching exhaustion, a tenuous lead offers a chance for Chief Inspector Moresby and leads him to the amateur criminologist Roger Sheringham, who has recently been providing cover work in a school south of London. Desperate for evidence of any kind, Moresby begins to sift through the manuscript of a satirical novel Sheringham had been writing about his colleagues.

September 1907. George Dillman sets sail from Liverpool to New York on the Lusitania's maiden voyage. Posing as a passenger, Dillman is in fact an undercover detective hired by the Cunard Line to keep an eye out for petty crimes. But after some uneventful days aboard, the ship’s blueprints are stolen and then a body is found. As Dillman works to get to the bottom of the crimes, he makes an unusual friend, first-class passenger Genevieve Masefield, and the two uncover secrets aboard the ship that prove explosive.

England, 1925. After years shut away from the world, former detective Lord Edgington of Cranley Hall plans a grand ball to celebrate his 75th birthday. But when someone starts bumping off members of his scheming family, the old man enlists his teenage grandson to help find the killer before one of them is next. The mismatched duo must pick the culprit from a gaggle of preening playboys, scatter-brained spinsters, and irate inspectors in this Agatha-Christie-style whodunnit that will have you racing to spot the killer. 

Chief Inspector Macdonald has been invited to a treasure hunt party at the house of the Graham Coombe, the celebrated publisher of Murder by Mesmerism. The clues of the hunt have been devised by Coombe's thriller-writer friends, disguised on the night under literary pseudonyms. The fun comes to an abrupt end, however, when 'Samuel Pepys' is found murdered in the telephone room in bizarre circumstances.

Crime author Dick Markham is in love again; his fiancée, Lesley Grant, the mysterious newcomer to the village. When Grant accidentally shoots a fortune teller through the side of his tent at the local fair - following a very strange reaction to his predictions - Markham is reluctantly brought into a scheme to expose his betrothed as a suspected serial husband-poisoner. That night the enigmatic fortune teller - and chief accuser - is found dead in an impossible locked-room setup, casting suspicion onto Grant and striking doubt into the heart of her lover.

Welcome to Alderley, a magnificent mansion in the heart of the West Country where a grand house party is taking place. The preparations have been made, the guests have been invited, and the staff are on hand. What could possibly go wrong? Let the entertainment begin. The theft of the diamond necklace and the antique pistols might all be explained, but the body in the lake - that really was a puzzle. 'Don't expect me to solve anything,' Inspector Wilkens announced modestly when he arrived to sort out the unpleasantness.

It is a dark and misty night, and bachelors Nicholas and Ian are driving to the ball at Fordings, a beautiful concert hall in the countryside. There waits the charming Dilys Maine, and a party buzzing with rumours of one Rosemary Reeve who disappeared on the eve of this event the previous year. With thoughts of this mysterious case ringing in their ears, Dilys and Nicholas strike a stranger on the drive back home, launching a new investigation and unwittingly reviving the search for what really became of Rosemary Reeve. 

England, 1930. An antiques dealer is found robbed and murdered in a third class train compartment on a remote Suffolk branch line. The police believe they know who the killer is, and an arrest is soon made. A passenger on the same train, the Reverend Lucian Shaw, country parson and former army chaplain, is concerned that the police have the wrong man and begins an investigation of his own. Before long, Shaw is drawn into a web of intrigue, deceit, and murder which lurks beneath the surface of a seemingly peaceful country parish.

Sally Meredith's young life has been full of adventure. As a suffragist, she fought for women's right to vote. She drove an ambulance in France during the war. And she's already had a proposal and a broken engagement. But the past few years have been deadly dull, taking care of a cranky relative and now living alone in a quiet village. So when her eccentric uncle Fritzi arrives with the tale of his most recent invention - a deadly gas that nations are striving to get hold of - she's intrigued.

Miss Marple meets Oscar Wilde in this new series of cosy mysteries set in the picturesque Cotswolds village of Bunburry. Life is looking up for amateur sleuth Alfie McAlister. He has found relatives he never knew he had, and at long last, he has replaced the avocado suite in his bathroom. But he is shocked to get a plea for help from his niece Ruby, a young law graduate in Oxford. There is no support from his fellow amateur sleuths: Liz and Marge are having problems of their own, and Constable Emma Hollis isn't answering her phone.

1903. Bookish, bespectacled Vita Carew longs to be left to her scientific studies. But, to her chagrin, she cannot avoid the event of the season, a gala at Pemberton Hall. This glamorous concert and sumptuous dinner will mark the Pemberton household’s return to society after a run of misfortune. But disaster strikes as soon as the seafood is served. Vita can only offer first aid as elegant guests fall suddenly ill on all sides. Worse still, she suspects a death has been covered up to avoid interrupting the carefully planned soirée.

Understandably, Lord Burford had some misgivings about hosting another house party at Alderley, his beautiful country mansion. After all, the previous two could at best be described as disastrous, since a couple of their guests were bumped off during their stay on each occasion. But with family members travelling down for the funeral of an elderly relative, the Earl really had no choice but to offer them accommodation.

Evelyn Christie has resigned herself to another long, boring weekend at Hessleham Hall, the home of her husband, Tommy's, family. However, it turns out to be anything but dull when his uncle, the Earl of Northmoor, is shockingly murdered! Evelyn must use all of her sleuthing knowledge, gained whilst she was a member of the Police force during the war, to find out who the murderer is before the bungling local police force decide the Earl was bumped off so Tommy could inherit his title.

When newlyweds Agnes and Andrew Kinghof are present for the discovery of an over-ripe corpse in the air-raid shelter of their apartment building, the two set out to put their amateur detective skills to work. The dead man's sister is nearly frightened to death by the appearance of a grinning pig's head outside her window, and she claims to be threatened by someone calling himself 'The Pig'. The newlyweds deduce that it must be someone who lives in the same apartment building.